A recent study revealed that the government is saving around $5.5 billion a year since the shift to cloud, according to this CRN article. The study was created from interviews with 108 federal IT managers and CIOs and was published by MeriTalk Cloud Computing Exchange. The study also found that if they had been more aggressive in cloud adoption, the government could have saved $12 billion.

The cloud storage wars are heating up with Google’s entry into the market. Google announced Google Drive last week and since then, competing services, such as Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive, have announced additional features to draw customers to their service, according to this eWeek article.

VMware hypervisor source code was released on the Internet this week by a hacker, according to this eWeek article. The breach may have come from China Electronics Imports & Export Corp. (CEIEC) which was traced back to an attack on Sina.com, an email hosting company.

For the fourth year in a row, spending on cloud computing has increased in the UK, according to this CloudPro article. The 2012 CA Technologies Channel Index survey, which questions 100 UK partners, found that 77% of partners are predicting greater expenditure on cloud computing this year, which is up from 72% last year and 56% in 2010.

Informatica has added a developer edition to its cloud data-integration platform which is now available through an early-access program, according to this PCWorld article. The developer edition allows vendors to create connectors for various cloud services through a Java-based interface. Informatica aims to expand their partner ecosystem with the offering.

Through year-end 2012, a significant number of pilot and production deployments of private cloud services will emerge, and hybrid cloud capability will become a major requirement. The market for cloud management platforms will expand greatly, but a number of vendors will be acquired or will exit the market. Outsourcing will become a mainstream alternative to internally deployed private clouds. This report by Gartner (compliments of Cloud Commons), examines the top five trends for private cloud and offers recommendations for your business based on those trends.

Many CIOs still shy away from cloud computing, tackling other priorities instead. Yet organizations may be ready to move today. Here’s how CIOs can make it happen.

A 1997 video recently surfaced online showing Apple co-founder Steve Jobs describing something that sounds a lot like cloud computing. In the grainy video, Jobs tells a tech crowd about the wonders of publicly available servers that hold applications and services that can be accessed from anywhere. Sound familiar, if a bit basic?

Now, less than two decades later, the vision Jobs had — cloud computing — has evolved, changing the way business and IT get done. But not every CIO is jumping on the cloud bandwagon. Read the full article.

Cloud Views

Who is responsible for cloud security? In this blog on PCWorld, Taylor Armerding discusses the role that cloud providers play and the extra steps they should take to educate their customers when it comes to cloud security.

Are businesses taking advantage of all the cloud has to offer? In this blog on Forbes, Mike Pearl discusses how businesses that are looking at cloud through a technology lens will be left behind by their competitors.

Is Google setting up a trap for customers with Google Drive? In this PCWorld blog, Lucas Mearian discusses Google’s terms of use and quotes users that have concerns over Google’s data mining activity.

MSP Corner

The cloud is creating many new opportunities for MSPs and some of those opportunities may be overlooked. In this blog on MSPmentor, Renee Bergeron discusses how MSPs can capitalize on IT asset life cycle management opportunities.

Two years ago, the cloud was all about outages and instability, but now it’s all about agility, scaling and strategy. In this blog on MSPmentor, Ian van Reenen discusses how the cloud has grown and the benefits that customers can expect to gain from the cloud.

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Hosted on Cloud Commons is the Service Measurement Index (SMI). Led by Carnegie Mellon University, SMI encompasses a growing consortium of members. SMI compiles user-submitted ratings of cloud services and scores them relative to other services of the same type. Ratings include metrics such as: quality, agility, risk, cost, capability, and security.

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Cloud Expo

Cloud Computing & All That
It Touches In One Location Cloud Computing - Big Data - Internet of Things
SDDC - WebRTC - DevOps
Cloud computing is become a norm within enterprise IT.

The competition among public cloud providers is red hot, private cloud continues to grab increasing shares of IT budgets, and hybrid cloud strategies are beginning to conquer the enterprise IT world.

Big Data is driving dramatic leaps in resource requirements and capabilities, and now the Internet of Things promises an exponential leap in the size of the Internet and Worldwide Web.

The world of SDX now encompasses Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDCs) as the technology world prepares for the Zettabyte Age.

Add the key topics of WebRTC and DevOps into the mix, and you have three days of pure cloud computing that you simply cannot miss.

Delegates will leave Cloud Expo with dramatically increased understanding the entire scope of the entire cloud computing spectrum from storage to security.

Cloud Expo - the world's most established event - offers a vast selection of 130+ technical and strategic Industry Keynotes, General Sessions, Breakout Sessions, and signature Power Panels. The exhibition floor features 100+ exhibitors offering specific solutions and comprehensive strategies. The floor also features two Demo Theaters that give delegates the opportunity to get even closer to the technology they want to see and the people who offer it.

Attend Cloud Expo. Craft your own custom experience. Learn the latest from the world's best technologists. Find the vendors you want and put them to the test.